I run a small shop here in Wales, more repairs than retail. Anyway, I had a customer on the phone for about 30 minutes on Monday asking for advice on
getting his new WiFi connection to work.

After going through all the usual "What router have you been given" "What's a router? Is that what I type on?" and so on, we finally got to the
bottom of it.

"They've given me a wireless box and it's not working.." "Ok", I reply, "What lights can you see on it..." "None whatsoever.." "Is it
plugged and switched on correctly" I ask.. "No. It's wireless." "Even though it's wireless, it still needs wires to plug into the mains and
the phone socket/filter." "No it does not. It's a wireless box..." And so on..

After 20 minutes I persuade him to look in the box the router came in, plug it into the wall, plug the other lead into the ADSL filter and then into
the phone socket and so on.." Bingo, all the usual status lights come on, so I try to explain how to connect via a wireless connection on his
computer. I'm sure you can all guess what's next.. He does not have a wifi adapter in his computer. I explain this to him, and also explain you
need to connect yet another cable from a matching socket on the back of the router to one on the back of the computer.

"Why do I need to use a cable. It's wireless!", was the reply...

Finally got him all sorted, and he then asks if I can call out and fit a wifi adapter into his computer. I ask "Are you planning on moving the
router or computer elsewhere then?" "No", he replies, "I just want the wireless.." I explain that, if nothing is going anywhere, there's no
point, he can stay on an ethernet cable quite happily. Not good enough, he's got a wireless box and he's determined to use it. That's a job
for next week. £30 call out fee, £15 for a wifi adapter, all so he can use his wireless...

At the end of all this, I ask why he did not call his ISP with all this. "Well, to call them costs 25p a minute, whereas you're local rate
call..."

Some days it's not worth gnawing through the leather straps to get out of bed...

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